


In Lieu of Remembrances

by myhomeistheshire



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: (kind of), F/F, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhomeistheshire/pseuds/myhomeistheshire
Summary: Somehow, nothing feels lonely at the bottom of a lake. (or, Dani wakes and forgets and sleeps and dreams and forgets, forgets, forgets.)
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 16
Kudos: 189





	In Lieu of Remembrances

Somehow, nothing feels lonely at the bottom of a lake.

Not-Dani is also not-Viola, the two of them pushing each other away like repellant magnets until they reach an equilibrium of something that is nothing of either woman. They watch the waves ripple above them, sending down dappled light to their resting place beneath. They sleep. They wake. They dream, of faces they can’t remember while waking but know implicitly while asleep. They forget. They wake. The water is broken panes of glass above them, but they are not afraid of sharp edges. How long have they been here? Did they have a name, once? They sleep. They dream. They wake. They forget. The water is cold at night. They don’t remember feeling this before - there was a before? The cold doesn’t hurt, only the memory of what piercing needles used to come from it. They sleep. They dream.

There are flowers, in the dreams. Perhaps they once knew the names, but now they are hazy bits of color, softness against skin; lilac, gold, saffron, ochre, cobalt blue. Soft white, warm and with pointed petals, buds opening before their very eyes. They wake. They forget. They dream again of the same white flowers, held deftly by calloused fingers. They want. They _want_. They wake. They forget, but the wanting stays, somehow. Perched on the edge of their shoulder, hiding just out of sight. The water is a knife. The knife doesn’t hurt. They sleep. They dream. They wake. They forget.

Nothing feels lonely at the bottom of a lake. _Lonely_ doesn’t exist here, swathed in the clinging arms of the reeds, watching the light fracture apart above them. Not-Dani-Not-Viola does not tire of the shapeless movement, every piece of color disappearing after a moment, never to be replicated quite the same way again. Minnows swim by, too busy with their tiny lives to be bothered by the lady of the lake. So brief. They’ll be dead before they have the chance to be forgotten, well before they have the opportunity to lose themselves. The lady sleeps, and in dreams they feel something, about that - about the fish. About the forgetting. And then, of course, they wake. And they forget that they had ever felt anything at all.

If they could put together a full thought about this, well, they suppose they would be grateful for it all. They would be thankful that the water doesn’t pierce their skin. That they have no heart to break. That there are no wounds in need of mending. If they are to be forgotten, perhaps they are grateful to forget. They would think this all the way until they dream and they see the face again, a woman’s face, sometimes laughing and sometimes teary and sometimes deathly, grimly, determinedly serious. _Dani_ , this woman sometimes says, reaching out towards them and if they were able to feel then this would feel awful, like their chest being ripped apart all at once. But of course, they don’t, and so it is simply a dream. Simply a preparation for forgetting.

Lonely feels nothing at the bottom of a lake.

Wait, no. That isn’t right. They aren’t lonely. They are not-Dani, not-Viola. They are an in-between space, vast swathes of peaceful static. Static can’t be lonely. Static is only static. They are only what they were meant to be, they remind themself. Only what they ever were. Static cannot want, so they must have imagined the longing that was keeping them company. A silly dream, one they should have forgotten. They close their eyes and wait for sleep, wait for what is always coming. The dreams have the woman in them again, and when they wake the images don’t wrap around them for a few extra moments, holding them tenderly as the woman had just before, held them together as they did their best to fall apart. This doesn’t happen, because they must forget. They will forget. They do forget, and they forget, and they forget. And somehow, they remember.

Jamie. Jamie is lonely at the bottom of a lake.

No. This is wrong again. They are the ones underwater, they are the ones lonely. _No_. Not lonely. Not anything. Just not-Dani. Just not-Viola. Just at the bottom of a lake. They are forgetting. They are supposed to be forgetting. The water is cold, but it doesn’t hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt? Is it supposed to? They can’t be feeling this. They can’t be feeling. They close their eyes, but sleep makes them wait for it. They don’t know why they want to be asleep. They don’t know why they want.

They sleep. They dream. Jamie is there. Jamie, who they’ve forgotten. Who they still do not remember. It’s been so long. This is nothing but a dream. They have nothing here. Jamie wraps her arms around them, a ring on her hand, bundled soil on her fingers. They ache. They _ache_.

They want the dream to end. They never want it to be over. But fortunate and unfortunately, the world does not allow for them to make their own decisions. They wake. They forget. They sleep. They wake. They forget.

Nothing is not-lonely at the bottom of a lake.

Perhaps they can accept this, for it is a not-thing, a not-idea. Just a shadow. Not-lonely. There are more minnows. Are these the same as before? It can’t be. It has been so long. The water continues to be nothing the same from moment to passing moment. The light continues to fracture and not be sad about it. Not-Dani-Not-Viola continues. They sleep. They dream. They wake. They forget.

They think they saw her, once. The woman. The one they haven’t remembered. Perhaps years ago, she came to them, screaming and crying and begging for them to take her. _You. Me. Us._ But they hadn’t. Why hadn’t they? If only they could remember. But memories are for the living and for the dead, and they are neither. Just static. It’s been so long. If they were ever young, they were young then. Surely, they’ve never known what that felt like.

They wake. They forget. They sleep. They dream.

Their wedding. That was the ring, the soil, the confounding tears. A wedding and a proposal, all wrapped up in one. They must have loved her, to do something like that. To write a note like the one they’d left on the bedside table.

No, that was different. That was later. Can’t they remember? The note came before, just before the lake and the sleep and the wake and the forget. Lake, sleep, wake, forget. It feels like a lullaby. They must have loved her, to have sung something like that.

They sleep. They wake. They sleep. They wake.

They remember. They forget.

Someone visits again, at the end of things. Is there an end of things? They must have forgotten. But of course this is an ending, as they watch the old woman wade in to her knees. Her hips. Her shoulders. Don’t they remember? Shouldn’t they forget? The woman’s face is lined as she pushes up against the mud, allows herself to float to the surface. The hair that drifts in the water is curled, grey with streaks of chestnut, and they wonder what the woman is looking at, up in the sky above her. Is there anything there? Why aren’t they forgetting?

Time passes. They sleep. They dream. They wake. They forget.

The woman is there with them. There, under the waves, as well as floating atop them. She reaches out a hand. ‘Dani,’ she says, and they wake. They wake. They forget about forgetting. The water is cold, and it hurts. ‘Dani, it’s me. It’s you. It’s us, love.’

Dani reaches out to grab the hand of the one she’s always loved, and she remembers.


End file.
